I know of at least three vegetarians on the list. Don't know
about any ecologists, rabbis, etc.
No sure about this 'implicit quest for good against evil'.
The best noir reveals complexity of character rather than
polarising good and evil.
Entertainment may not be the final goal, but it has to be the
primary goal. If the reader isn't entertained sufficiently by
the story, they're not going to turn the pages so any loftier
ambition won't be realised.
Al
----- Original Message -----
From: E. Borgers
To:
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, August 30, 2006 12:21 PM
Subject: RE : Re: RARA-AVIS: Re: Name Your
Poison
Ask the ecologists, the vegetarians for your list
!
Even rabbis, mahometans, hindus, if you have
enough time...
Nothing coming from humans is innocent.
Reality is a myth as we all know, and IMO good
fiction uses a part of it to reach something of a higher
order. Maybe "natural" moral, not a systematized one as
organizations, states, religions try to impose.
The best fiction carries something of the same
essence as poetry: more than the written word, speaking to
the "feelings", in noir and others of exceptional quality IMO
it touches the same inner area in the person as metaphysics
do.
On the other hand, very few things are universal,
the same for all humans. The list is short: life and death,
fear, love, basic psychology and instincts... Good and bad is
also a constant, but outside its "natural" essence,
application is always a manipulation by society.
So speaking of morality in fiction is a double
level of speculations, entering the territory of highly
speculative ideas. In noir lit. the implicit quest for good
against evil is something constant, its existential essence,
what is found behind the transgressions or the apparent
follow up of a "clasic" moral code (product of a
society).
And I'm not convince at all that "entertainment"
is the final goal of lit.
My views on this "moral" issue.
E.Borgers
HARD-BOILED MYSTERIES
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/6389
Allan Guthrie
I can see how you can derive a moral theme from a
shopping list (bread, milk, handcuffs, tape, spade), if
you're so inclined, but that's -- as I said before -- the
reader's interpretation. It's very far from giving a moral
lesson. A lesson requires intent on the part of the author to
instruct the reader.
Long live ambiguity,
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